STEWART SCORES 11TH AT DOVER;
Home Depot Driver Picks Up 22 Spots in 400-Mile Race
Tony Stewart had a relatively uneventful 400-mile Sunday drive at Dover
(Del.) International Speedway. The driver of the No. 20 Home Depot
Toyota for Joe Gibbs...

Tony Stewart had a relatively uneventful 400-mile Sunday drive at Dover
(Del.) International Speedway. The driver of the No. 20 Home Depot
Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) rallied from his 33rd-place starting
spot to finish a respectable 11th in the Camping World RV 400 NASCAR
Sprint Cup Series race.

"Honestly, once you got past the part about your car sliding around, it
was kind of fun the way the track moved around as much as it did," said
Stewart, who now has 20 career Sprint Cup starts at the 1-mile oval. "I
mean, I felt like that's the most I've ever moved around here at Dover.

"We never could hit the balance spot-on, and when we did, it seemed like
we needed more grip. We could get it in the zone, but we couldn't get
the grip level that we needed to go with it.

"It was one of those days where we were a little bit off, but I thought
the guys had good pit stops all day, I felt like I got in and out of
the pits good all day, but I felt like I was the weak link today in the
equation. I lost about six or seven spots on restarts picking the wrong
lane to go to, but we got all those back. Just where we ended up was
about where we deserved to be. That was about as good as we were all
day."

Crew chief Greg Zipadelli echoed Stewart's thoughts.

"I don't know that we made it much better at all, really," said
Zipadelli of the constant tinkering he did on each and every pit stop
the team made during the race. "We put a (spring) rubber in the right
rear because we were tight. We did a little bit of wedge. We just did
a lot of things, but nothing really was a big improvement. We were
close, but we never got it to be where it needed to be. It's a little
frustrating. Everybody did a good job, and everybody kept a positive
attitude and it could've been a lot worse than 11th.

"Track position was everything. We just never could get there. We could
run decent lap times to be up further than that, but we just couldn't
get there. We needed everybody to get all spread out and run some laps
and we were pretty good. We'll just keep working."

Stewart's JGR teammates -- Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin -- endured far
more frustrating days. Busch finished last in the 43-car field with a
blown engine and Hamlin finished 38th after heading to the garage area
just past the halfway mark of the race to replace his car's driveshaft
and rear-end gear.

"For those guys, they can just throw caution to the wind and go for
wins now," said Stewart, who endured an equally auspicious start to
his Chase aspirations in 2004, the inaugural season of the Chase for
the Sprint Cup. "If I were Kyle, I'd go out there and just worry about
winning races again. It's been a remarkable, record-setting year for
that kid, and the best way to finish it off now is to go out there and
win three or four races during the Chase. It's hard to tell him to keep
his head up. I mean, there's nobody who's going to make him feel better
right now, and rightfully so. The kid has worked hard all year. The
team has worked hard all year. They've just had two bad races in a row,
and that's what you hope doesn't happen, obviously. You feel for those
guys."

Greg Biffle won the Camping World RV 400 to score his 14th career Sprint
Cup victory, his second of the season and his second at Dover. Matt
Kenseth and Carl Edwards finished second and third to give Roush Fenway
Racing a sweep of the top three spots, while Mark Martin and Jimmie
Johnson rounded out the top-five. Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Clint
Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Michael Waltrip comprised the remainder of the
top-10.

There were 10 caution periods for 45 laps, with three drivers failing to
finish the three-and-a-half hour race.

All three JGR drivers are represented in this year's Chase for the
Sprint Cup. Busch, who held the point lead for 17 consecutive races
before a 34th-place finish last week at New Hampshire dropped him
to eighth, fell even further after his disastrous outing at Dover.
He is now 12th in points, 210 markers behind series leader Edwards.
Hamlin dropped five positions to 11th and is 193 points behind Edwards.
Stewart maintained his seventh-place standing and his 113 points arrears
Edwards.